


Second Chances

by Natterina



Series: Phantasmagoria [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/F, Gen, Minor Character Death, Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-01
Updated: 2016-12-01
Packaged: 2018-09-03 11:06:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8710162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Natterina/pseuds/Natterina
Summary: The tales tell of the Hero of Ferelden being granted two Soul Marks by the Maker: the first when she is born, and the second when she needs it the most, allowing her to find love in the ravages of the fifth blight.Of course, the truth is never that simple.





	

Lyna Mahariel is born with the Name burned into her right wrist; the neat elvish script writes _Tamlen Sabrae_ in letters almost too small to see, and Ashalle takes the squirming babe with a small smile, finding comfort in the knowledge that the unfortunate orphan will find happiness in the clan she was born into. 

And Mahariel _does_ grow up happy, spending each day of her childhood from the day she can walk alongside the boy who has _Lyna Mahariel_ wrapped around his left wrist. His goes around the wrist wholly while hers is only at the top of her forearm, and they spend days examining each other’s before determining that they will become best friends.

They are rare, in the Dalish. Clans cannot afford to swap members based on the names on their wrists, and due to their nomadic nature many spend their whole lives never meeting their other half.

Whether the love that blossoms between them is due to the names or their closeness, neither can deny it by the time they are young adults. They keep it secret, content to find their happiness in the quiet of the forest glades and in the thrill of hunting together. Their love is a quiet giggle on the forest floor, the exploration of caves in the morning light with the knowledge of the other at their back. It is the searing burn that travels up her arm when glove-less fingers brush against the glass of the mirror.

Mahariel is blissful, and then she is not.

When she wakes three days after watching her beloved put his fingers on the mirror glass, her screams are agony to the camp as she looks down at her wrist and sees the white Name turn black.

* * *

Leliana is born four years after the Hero of Ferelden, but as the tales tell, she is born with an elvish Name on her left wrist which she cannot decipher. A young Leliana spends years of her childhood fondly running her fingers over the elegant script, desperate to understand, to read the Name. 

She is sixteen when a former Dalish elf is hired to Lady Cecilie’s staff, and she pleads and begs for him to translate the Name on her wrist. In the end, she has promised him far more than she is actually able to give, and so all he tells her is that the Name _is_ Elven, but the clan wanders Ferelden and cannot be pinned down.

Leliana returns to her studies crestfallen but determined, as passionate in this as she is in all things.

She is twenty-six when the Name goes black.

* * *

 “Tell me, if I am to be travelling with you, what is your Name?”

“My Name is Lyna.” The woman before her carries with her the sadness of a lost love, and Leliana rubs at her wrist self-consciously. She had hoped, upon realising the Warden was Dalish, that this woman might be her Name, but the woman had tugged off her gauntlets after the fighting and Leliana had glimpsed a blackened Name on her wrist.

She had never seen another with a blackened Name, but no doubt it holds the reason for her sadness.

“No last Name?”

The responding smile is half a sneer, half a frown.

“You would not know it.” 

* * *

Leliana and Mahariel grow close, as the weeks drag on into months, and Leliana considers her as her closest companion on the road. What is also odd, Alistair mentions to her one day, is how close Mahariel is to Morrigan as well. 

“I’m just surprised, is all. You and  Morrigan are so different, and yet she sees you both as her close friends.” Alistair is walking a few paces behind her as they follow Mahariel on the long trek to the Circle Tower from Redcliffe. Sten, Morrigan, Mahariel and the dog lead the way.

“Perhaps Morrigan and I are not as different as you think.” Leliana ponders, and Alistair shrugs.

“Perhaps, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t start snarking me at every opportunity.”

“I can’t promise that; I was raised as an Orlesian: we live for subtle snark.” Leliana’s smile is warm, and Alistair grins in response. Leliana waits a moment before she asks her next question. “When you told us about being Maric’s son, why did you tell us at all? You could easily have kept quiet.”

Alistair sighs.

“It’s the worst kept secret in the nobility. You would find out soon enough. When I was born, I had no Name on my wrist, and of course we knew that was because my Name hadn’t been born yet. But when I was three years old, Teyrn Cousland went to see my father because his wife had given birth to a girl with the Name ‘Alistair Theirin’ on her wrist. When we checked mine, sure enough.” Alistair tugs off his gauntlet and shows her his wrist, and Leliana raises a brow at the untidy _Elissa Cousland_ settled between the lines of his wrist.

“Have you met?”

“Of course not. She’s eligible for any political marriage until the moment we meet. That’s how it works over here.”

“I would say it is sad, that she cannot meet you when you both know where the other one is, but it works just the same in Orlais.”

Alistair’s smile is sad, and they continue up the road in silence.

* * *

At the top of Kinloch Hold, Leliana helps the poor young Templar down the many sets of stairs after Mahariel’s victory. He is young, almost too young for the job he holds, but his experience has made him so very bitter. He frequently admonishes her for letting Mahariel save the mages, for allowing there to be a risk of possession, but Leliana manages to tune him out for the most part. He stumbles along with her, twitching at the creak of every door, the drops of blood landing on the stones. 

As they stay to help the survivors, Leliana helps the young man with his wounds. His wrists are red raw from where he has been rubbing and scratching at them, and Leliana does not need to look at them to know the desire demon taunted him with visions of his Name.

She is rubbing a healing poultice over his wrist when he realises his Name is on view to her, and he angrily snaps at her to cover it quickly with a bandage.

But Leliana has seen it, and with all of her history lessons in her youth, recognises the surname all too well. The Name _Evelyn Trevelyan_ is written so neatly along his wrist that it is almost a crime to cover it up, but she will not leave him able to look at something which will remind him of his experience on the upper floor. He flinches at the very sight of it, awful memories stirring behind his eyes.

Leliana covers it up tenderly, praying that one day the templar Cullen will be able to look at his wrist and smile in hope, again.

She sighs, and wonders why so many young Templars seem to be matched to noble women.

* * *

It is another two months until Leliana gains the confidence to ask Mahariel to translate the Name on her wrist. It is a calm evening, after an eventful day visiting the Temple of Sacred Ashes. Mahariel looks drained, and she confides in Leliana that she saw the spirit of the man whose Name is on her wrist. He has told her to let go, she confesses, but she is terrified of a life without her match. There is no one out there for her, with her match dead. 

Leliana is not so sure about dead; from her studies, she learned as a child that a dead Name made the writing go pink: Mahariel’s wrist is a bloody bruise of blue and black, and the Name _looks_ like congealed blood. Whilst Leliana’s Name had initially turned black and bruised, it had calmed the day of her vision, and now merely looked as though she had gone over it with ink: in contrast, Mahariel’s is spinning out of control.

Mahariel leans back as the fire grows warmer, weary but eager to be heading off. Once they have returned the Ashes to Redcliffe and healed Arl Eamon, they will be aiming to find the Dalish in the Brecillian Forest. It will be worth it, Mahariel thinks, even if she has to endure another moment of Isolde.

It is quiet between them for only a moment, the crackling of the fire beating back against the cool air at the nape of Leliana’s neck. She holds her wrist gently, as though it were fragile, and Mahariel turns to look at her sharply.

“I can tell you want to ask me something. Go ahead.” As Leliana holds her forearm out, Mahariel takes it gently, and Leliana feels her skin _burn_ at the contact. The Name on her wrist is almost searing at the skin on skin contact, and Mahariel looks just as shocked until she schools her features into one of calm.

Once she reads the Name, she lets Leliana’s arm drop limply back to her side. Leliana has not quite told Mahariel about her past, but even without it she can see Mahariel pale at an alarming rate. The spark in her eyes shuts down as the Warden refuses to look at her, and her eyes narrow minutely before she snaps her gaze back to Leliana.

“It says Merrill Sabrae.”

Mahariel does not notice that the smile on Leliana’s face is entirely false. Mahariel does not realise that the charming “Oh thank you, it is such a relief to finally know!” is laced with so much falseness it would make Morrigan _proud_. Mahariel sees a relieved human, and grins tightly before making an excuse and all but fleeing to the other side of camp.

Leliana watches her go with disappointment in her stomach and her teeth gritted tightly together.

Mahariel is lying.

* * *

The feelings come in just after. Leliana is confused, unable to understand why her heart pulls her towards Mahariel when her own match is out there somewhere, possibly even in the Dalish Camp they are heading towards. 

Trying desperately to ignore her feelings for Mahariel, Leliana thinks of how her Elven match might look, how they talk and act and interact with the world around them. But no matter how many times she forces herself to daydream of another, the image in her mind always returns to Mahariel.

The woman is an itch she cannot be rid of, a worm in her heart that refuses to leave, and the worst of it is that Leliana knows the woman has no feelings for her.

Or so she thinks. 

That changes one day when, two days away from the Dalish Camp, they are returning from what looks to be their last opportunity to bathe for a week. The forest around them is quiet as they walk back to camp, and their conversation is light.

There is a moment, in the middle of their discussion, where Mahariel’s eyes meet Leliana’s and refuse to look away. Leliana trails off, not noticing that they have stopped dead in their tracks, and feels shivers up her spine as Mahariel steps closer.

“You have no idea, do you?”

And no, she _does not_ , and her confusion only grows when Mahariel follows up her strange statement with a kiss that almost makes her gasp in its intensity. Mahariel pulls their bodies close until Leliana feels the searing heat on her wrist once more, and her hands reach out to clutch and Mahariel’s tunic. _This_ she can work with; she is no stranger to sex, and one hand digs into Mahariel’s hip as the other finds it way under her tunic and rises, rises.

The sound of a screech ringing through the air separates them, and both run to the camp at the sound of metal ringing and darkspawn screaming.

The battle is almost over before they’ve even arrived, but Mahariel manages to deposit a few arrows into a shriek before it is finished.

The camp in tense, the silence before the storm, and Leliana is about to question Mahariel on the events in the forest before the woman turns away from her to look at the lone ghoul standing at the edge of the camp.

At the keening sob of grief that leaves Mahariel’s throat, Leliana knows she will not follow her. She can only watch the heart-breaking reunion between Mahariel and Tamlen, so pitiful in its entirety that even she feels tears in her eyes at the scene, and Alistair finds he cannot watch it at all.

That night, she comforts her friend by stroking her hair through the sobs, and ensuring the woman drinks enough water to match the tears she sheds. It is all she can do, and the kiss remains forgotten in the forest.

* * *

It does not remain forgotten to Leliana for long, when Mahariel and her chosen party for the day leave on Zathrian’s quest, and Leliana asks the Hahren to translate the Name on her wrist. 

She returns to camp utterly furious and beyond livid, but she also returns to camp confused and upset. She has seen Mahariel’s wrists, and she knows there is only one Name on the right wrist. There can be no confusion; she is not Mahariel’s match.

Why, then, is Mahariel hers?

Leliana keeps her newfound information to herself, and if she distances herself from Mahariel in the process? Perhaps it is for the best.

* * *

En route to Denerim, one week after recruiting the dwarves to their cause, the camp is awakened once again by an ear splitting shriek ringing through the camp. 

Panic turns to confusion, however, when the source turns out not to be darkspawn, but Mahariel. Laid on her bedroll next to the fire, the elf is screeching blue murder as she clutches her left wrist to her stomach, curled over it as through trying to protect it from the pain.

Leliana rushes to her first, of _course_ , but Mahariel refuses to move her wrist from where it is buried in the folds of her tunic. Leliana tries to pull it away, but Mahariel snaps her arm back and scoots away, clenching her teeth and tensing her jaw to dull the sudden, unknown pain. Leliana sits with her until the pain dissipates and Mahariel orders her to go back to bed, but Leliana merely returns to her tent and watches through the small gap in the cloth.

Mahariel stays sitting up on her bedroll, her knees up with her forearms resting on her thighs. The dark haired woman is staring at both of her wrists in disbelief, fingers running over one and then the other.

Surprisingly, the elf gets up from her bedroll and storms towards Morrigan’s lone camp on the edge of the clearing. Leliana slips out of her tent and follows, with only the eyes of the dog following her. Mahariel does not catch on that Leliana is following, hidden in the darkness of the treeline. She uses the shadows to keep her well concealed, and manages to get close enough to hear the conversation between the elf and the witch.

“And this has never happened before?”

“How should I know? I’ve lived my life just as isolated as you.” The snark in Morrigan’s voice is always much gentler when she is speaking to Mahariel, but even Leliana can tell that Mahariel is spooked enough to warrant it. Morrigan is holding Mahariel’s left wrist in her hands, and Leliana can see the skin is red and raised.

“What do I do?”

“Whatever you wish. These names are not binding, for all the world loves to think they are. Defy it, or take it. And be thankful you didn’t wake up with _Alistair_ on there.”

* * *

It is in Denerim when Leliana finally loses it.

She is angry, she is upset: how could Marjolaine have been so _paranoid_? To believe she was a snake waiting in the shadows to strike, when in reality she had been trying to distance herself from her past, trying to do _good_? 

Yes, Leliana is not in a good mood; tired of Marjolaine, sick of Mahariel with her lies and her secrets that she holds too close to her chest. She happens to look at Mahariel just as the woman is uncomfortably rubbing her left wrist, and Leliana decides that she is _done._

Mahariel is dragged into an empty alley before she knows what is happening, and Alistair is prevented from following by an oddly sympathetic Morrigan.

As an elven Dalish hunter, Mahariel is quick, but Leliana is quicker, with better close quarter skills. Mahariel is slammed against the nearest wall before she can react well enough. Leliana lets her go long enough to believe she is free, before she rips the leather gloves off Mahariel’s hands in tandem.

Mahariel flinches and tries to move away, but Leliana grabs both wrists and pulls them to her to get a closer look.

And Mahariel is standing there looking ashamed and shy and quite unlike herself, as she turns her head away in refusal to look at her wrists. But Leliana cannot breathe, cannot quite comprehend what she is seeing in front of her. She has suspected, since the night Mahariel woke the camp screaming, but she had not _truly_ expected to see what she sees now.

Two wrists. The right one no longer bruised, with a faint Name in pink elvish script at the top of the forearm.

The left one red but only from being constantly rubbed, with _her_ Name in white. The script is undeniably her writing, elegant as Lady Cecile insisted but with the slight curl at the end of the ‘n’ as it overlapped the ‘a’. It is deep, a good representation of how hard Leliana presses her quill to parchment, but Leliana can only process that it is _her Name_ branded on Mahariel’s wrist as though it had been there all of their lives.

“Look at me.” But Mahariel will not, her head turned away as she tries desperately to press herself as far into the wall as possible. There are tears in her eyes as she weakly tries to tug her wrists away, but Leliana will not let go.

“I’m sorry.”

“For lying to me?” Leliana counters, and Mahariel does not need to ask to know Leliana is aware of what her wrist says.

“How long have you known?”

“Since we visited the Dalish. Though I knew you were lying for far longer.”

Finally, Mahariel turns her head back to look at Leliana, and there is a shame in her eyes at her own actions.

“You need to understand. I’ve lived my entire life with my clanmate’s Name on my wrist. I was confused: I had lost him, and it _hurt_ , but there you were with _my_ Name on your wrist and I, I panicked. I started to fall in love with you, but I did not have _yours_. I loved you, but it feels like betrayal.”

And Leliana can almost understand, can remember the sour taste in her mouth when her feelings for Marjolaine had developed, the bile at the back of her throat with every intimate touch as betrayal clawed at her heart for betraying her unknown Name. In hindsight, she should have known Mahariel was hers when it did not feel like a betrayal to love her.

“You _can_ love both. Do not see it as a betrayal; see it as another chance. My Name did not appear until _after_ his faded, no?” Mahariel shakes her head to confirm Leliana’s words, and it drops to her chest in grief.

“It _hurts_.” Mahariel crumples then, almost caves in on herself as Leliana holds her up against the wall, her grief and her confusion and her love spilling out in one giant mess of tears and sobs. Leliana holds her through it, wipes her tears away and runs her fingers through her hair in comfort. At the end of it all, Mahariel kisses her, and it is _wonderful._

It is full of grief and love, slow and sweet and nothing at all like their hot kiss in the woods, but it is a step forward, and Leliana’s wrist warms and tingles with each moment of contact.

Mahariel follows her to her tent that night, and though it will take a _very_ long time before the comfort and the love no longer comes hand in hand with grief and hurt, it nevertheless feels like coming home. Leliana cannot be more elated.

* * *

There is a moment, when the beam of light above Fort Drakon illuminates the skies, that Leliana fears Mahariel dead. From her place at the city gates she feels her wrist ache in agony, feels her blood heat up around her hand as, unknown to her, the Archdemon tries to fight with her love for control of the body. 

The pain dissipates immediately the moment Urthemiel’s soul seeks out Morrigan’s womb and the light blinks out, and Leliana looks back down to the darkened Name with hope.

* * *

“You never told me why we both had black Names on our wrists.” 

Mahariel cocks her head to the side, the glass of wine in her hand odd when viewed in conjunction with her armour.

“Oh? I wasn’t aware you knew I had an answer.”

“I guessed: you never seemed surprised.”

Mahariel ponders for a moment, a brief flash of pain running across her features, before she smiles.

“Yours turned black a month before we met? It was the day Tamlen and I were infected with the blight. Mine was controlled with the Joining, hence why yours did not bruise for so long. But Tamlen was left with the blight spreading through his body, and so it was reflected in the Name.”

“And why did you get a second Name?” Leliana is teasing, at this point, relaxed and glad to finally be able to tease her lover. The people outside are clamouring to get another look at the Hero of Ferelden, but she will take as long as she needs with Leliana. At her words, Mahariel smiles, and takes her hand gently in her own.

“Fantastic luck. And a second chance.”

* * *

Leliana almost misses it, when the scout who hands her the letter from the Hero of Ferelden brushes her fingers for just a bit too long when handing her it. She almost misses it, if not for the familiar stance, and the tingle that shoots up her wrist. 

“Why are you here? I thought you far gone to the west.”

The scout removes her hood, and sure enough, there stands Mahariel with her vallaslin to Mythal shining in the candlelight.

They talk for hours, and Leliana is not ashamed to admit she sheds a tear or two when Mahariel confesses she is to head north to the Donarks, in an attempt to find a single scholar. Mahariel is about to leave when she remembers.

“Your Commander, the one kissing the captain in the courtyard this morning, I recognise him. Where did you find him?”

“Do you remember the young man we saved from the top of Kinloch Hold?”

Mahariel snorts a laugh.

“You mean the da’len who shouted that I was going to get us all killed if I didn’t kill the mages first? _He’s_ in command of the Inquisition army? The pro-mage army?” 

“Kinloch Hold was a difficult time for everyone. Do not judge him for what he said that day; judge him in light of the progress he has made since then.”

“Of course. But you really should tell him to stop kissing in full view of the keep: I spotted two Orlesian’s trying to _sketch_ them.”

And Leliana laughs then, a light and happy sound that has not left her lips since Justinia died, and it echoes in the empty spaces of the rookery. Mahariel grins and pulls Leliana to the door, a mischievous look in her eyes. 

“Come, let us give them something to _really_ talk about.”


End file.
